> I think you are right in saying that Mao was probably> extremely intelligent; one can deduce this from the way he> simplified the Chinese characters, united the country, and> defeated the technologically and quantitatively superior KMT> army. In some sense, there are many parallels between Mao> and Qin Shi Huang Di.

I think you need to read up a bit more about China’s history to appreciatejust how extraordinary Mao was. I’m not sure if he was one directly responsiblefor the simplified Chinese characters. In my mind, the most special thingabout Mao is that he was the first ever peasant to start and win a revolutionfrom scratch against an overwhelming ruling government. Coming from a peasantfamily, he truely understood the most fundamental problems in Chinese society.

There is absolutely no comparison between Qinshi Huang and Mao, Mao was nevera conqueror or dictator of China, he was a true public servant, he truely wanted to save China and make China great. Mao probably had a much deeper understanding of democracy than anyone in the 6.4 demonstration, that’s whyhe started culture revolution — to strip all priviliages and the concepts ofpriviliages from the government and authorities, thereby totally eliminating any rulling class and breaking the barriers in the social hierarchy. During theinitial periods of the Cultural Revolution, any ordinary person could go toany high ranking public servants to question or argue with them.

The failure of the cultural revolution was a combination of several complexfactors. Most importantly, Mao was too old to have any control of what was happening, so other people who had their own personal agendas diverted the course of cultural revolution to the worse.

> He was a military genius but he also had a tyrrannical> inclination, and did as much harm to China as he did good.

This is where you are mostly wrong. Mao was never ever a dictator. He wantednothing for himself or his family. He didn’t even allow his own daughters tohave his surname so they wouldn’t be given any special treatment. He and hisown families starved just like everyone else during the most difficult timesof early PRC. He resented money and refused to touch money. He never promotedanyone close to him or he liked to any unjustified positions. Mao has beenundoubtedly the most selfless and honest head of government of China inhistory. He did far more good to China than harm.

> He also had the conceit of imagining he knew how to run an> economy; but the simplistic principles that worked for him so> well on a battlefield and politically apparently abandoned> him when he tried to put them into effect economically,> resulting in the disastrous GLF.

You cannot just blame Mao for the economy disasters of early PRC. The earlyCCP followed the Russians to develop the economy, most of the senior CCPmembers including Mao probably never had any experience in managingeconomy. I think the failure of the economy during early PRC was mainly due to the following three factors:

(1) The failure of the communism theory to recognise the inherent weakness inhuman beings.

(2) The desire for ordinary Chinese to please Mao.

(3) Adpoting the Russian economy model on China.

I think Mao was only partly responsible for (1) and (3), and he was totallypowerless to stop (2). Mao was worhsipped as a god, but he did absolutelynothing to encourage it, in fact, he was totally against it during theearly periods of PRC. During Mao’s period, corruption in CCP was almost unheard of, the vast majority of the CCPs were true public servants.

> He also murdered his> political opponents after having invited them to a banquet.

This is such BS, who the heck did he murder?

As far as I’m concerned, the biggest mistake Mao’s ever made was to rejectthe early suggestion of birth control, he personally dismissed the idea thata huge population could be a problem, and he encouraged the breeding.

I’m sorry for babbling for such a long time, but I am just so sick and tired of listening to all the bad-mouthing about the greatest Chinese ever lived.

Wang Gungwu

If you don't have a sense of the past, your future will be diminished. Knowing where you come from, where your roots are, and all those great - and terrible - things that happened in the past, strengthens your identity